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Yeah, okay, this sucks. I have a low grade headache (probably from lack of caffeine), I feel like I need to yell at someone and I'm freaking tired. I mean exhausted. I feel like I could lay down and sleep for days.

I knew that the caffeine would cause a problem in trying to kick it but this is brutal. I think I underestimated my food needs today. I had a plan for breakfast, snacks, lunch, and it didn't work. I was hungry and had a caffeine headache. Not a pleasant afternoon.

We had dinner at a friends tonight so I came home and took a nap - that helped. Dinner was easy. It was a barbecue so there was chicken breasts and salad, so I had no problem eating at dinner. That's good.

So, yeah, Day 1 is over and so far I'm not having a great time. I know this will pass and frankly it can't happen soon enough. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

As you may know I've been really working on my eating for the past few months. I've worked my diet such that I eat really clean. I eat very few processed foods. I've pretty well wiped any and all sugar out of my diet. I eat 10-12 servings of fruit and vegetables everyday. I've tried to remove wheat. You get the idea.

There are a couple of reasons or this. I want to eat healthier. Just last weekend I ate a bunch of garbage and I really felt bad. Tired, lazy, sleepy, slow and sluggish. So that's my main reason. The second reason though is that I've been thinking I may have some food allergies. Once I started eating clean I noticed problems when I ate certain things. I know I'm sensitive to soy. Every time I eat that I feel bloated and really, really gassy. I knew you wanted to know that :) I've also come to think I have problems with wheat. Whenever I eat a lot of wheat, especially processed wheat, my lower intestines do not feel good - fo…

I'm switching all my light over to CFL's. They use significantly less amounts of energy so I'll be helping save the environment and not contributing to the global warming fraud problem.

Oh, wait......Seems there is a small problem with CFLs. THEY CONTAIN MERCURY!!!! Now, let me get this straight. The US government, in this case the FDA, recommends you don't eat fish because of mercury. Now it's been proven that this is based on a flawed study and that not eating fish while pregnant produces stupid children.... But the US government, in this case the EPA, says using CFLs, ie bringing mercury into your home, is perfectly acceptable. HUH??????????

This is the problem with this whole global warming state of fear, no one really knows what they are doing. No one, certainly not Al Gore!!! Some people are literally running around like Chicken Little screaming 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling'. Stop, get the facts not the hype, and think.

It was 40 years ago this week that Sgt. Pepper was released. Wow!!! Now that will be a little too long ago for some of you. Actually, I was 8 at the time so I really don't remember it either. But I do remember when the Beatles were super famous. I remember seeing scenes of the girls at the airports and such. Even at 8 I thought it was ridiculous.

What will the next 40 years bring?? I do not foresee us looking back at any of the crappy music released today and saying, 'wow, in 2007 that was released.'

Our company is starting to look around for our Christmas gifts. I know it's not even July yet, but we have to decide what we want, order them, get them, get them boxed and shipped. We are talking months of work here. We're a small company so we can't spend too much money. Plus, we have tons of clients. Of course, we only send gifts to our big customers, still it can add up.

But I may have stumbled on something fairly unique. What about a customized wine opener? Lots and lots of people are into wine. Not me, but lots. I think something like this would be an awesome gift.

When giving company gifts I always think it's really nice to make it personal. For example, one of our clients always gives us custom key chains at Christmas. He gives one for everybody. I use that key chain all year long and when I'm working on his stuff I always give it a little extra effort because it was a personal gift. I know that's not that personal but it's better than a gift…

On the way home from work I was listening to the radio and they were talking about Star Wars. It's hard to believe that was released 30 years ago this week. Wow. So what were you doing 30 years ago?

I was 18 years old. Pregnant. And incredibly stupid. I remember how I thought I knew it all and had it all figured out. I had gone against my mother for since I was 15 and things had not gotten any better. I was marrying a man who turned out to be horrible in ways I can't even begin to describe. But in spite of the way I had acted my Mom was there for me. When things started to come apart at the seams, she was right there.

I remember when things started to really fall apart in April of 1978 I was crushed to discover that not only did I not know it all, I didn't know anything at all. Life had kicked me in the teeth and I was totally unprepared. It was quite an awakening.

Here we are 30 years later and I've done things I never even knew existed then. I've become …

I found this very cool calorie counter online, that's free and very easy to use.

I have to confess, I've been using FitDay for years and while it's a good program there are some things about it that bother and frustrate me. When I get frustrated with it I stop using it, that's not good. I've tried this one out and it seems very simple, straightforward, and easy to use. I like it.

It helps you track your calories eaten, exercises done - strength and cardio - water drank, etc. It has some nice reports so you can see how things are going and there is a community where you can hook up with other losers :)

It seems to be pretty good. I would highly recommend checking it out.

Now, I've mentioned that I'm doing the Afterburn program so I've got a eating program to follow. With this I can customize it so I can use it with Afterburn. So I can use this program to keep track of my nutrition. This is really nice. I think I'm going to use it for a while an…

I've been eating clean for quite a while now, I guess since the beginning of the year. So that's almost 6 months. When I eat clean I feel really good. No, I mean really good. I have more energy. I sleep better. I just feel better, I can't describe it all, I just do.

So this past weekend, due to a number of factors, I ate a lot of crap. There was beer, and burgers, and cookies, and ice cream, and kim chee fried rice (which if you haven't had, you haven't lived!!) and much more I can't recall. Well, this feeding frenzy began on Friday night and by Sunday I was dragging. After lunch I was tired and needed a nap. I wasn't sleeping so well at night. I had zero energy to do anything. Monday was similar. I needed a nap in the afternoon and was in bed by 8:30.

Initially I put this lethargy down to the long weekend. It was only this morning that I realized what had truly happened. My body (or anyone's really) can't process so much garbage and, s…

If you've never had a bird as a pet you really haven't lived. I've had birds before but Ms. Xena is really quite the character.

She is a fairly large bird, from the top of her head to the tip of her tail she is about 2' long. When she gets scared and raises her feathers and her crest she looks much larger, that's the whole idea behind the crest-scare predators.

Tonight I'm in my computer room where her cage is and suddenly she puffs up real big and starts screaming. Okay, when you are in the same room and she goes off it's really, really loud.

So she's screaming away and then stops. All of a sudden she starts screaming again. Then she settles down. I could not figure out what was setting her off. Suddenly, I notice a termite flying around the light. Every time it gets near her she starts screaming. I was laughing so hard I could hardly kill the termite. This giant 2' bird is scared to death of this little 1/2" termite. What a character.

My alarm goes off this morning and I'm lying in bed debating a snooze when POOF!!! The power goes out. Do you know how quiet it is at 4:45 a.m. when there is no electricity?? It's amazing how much noise our electric stuff generates that we don't even notice anymore. It was unbelievably quiet.

So I get up get something to eat, do my workout, shower, get ready to go all in the dark. Every morning Xena, the warrior moluccan, has to have one of those Eggo mini waffles. Well, there was no power at breakfast time so I had to "toast" her waffle over the flames from the gas stove. I'm standing there, holding a mini waffle in a pair of tongs, trying to toast them over the flame. The waffle caught fire like 4 times. I dropped the little bugger into the flames. As I'm doing this all I could think of is "what the heck am I doing?" Oh, the things we go through for our animals.

Just as I'm getting ready to leave the power comes back on! Ugh!!! It…

It's been a smorgasbord of gluttony this weekend. I feel like a little piggy!!! Okay, that's over and tomorrow it's back to business.

I've been trying something new and I'm not sure I like it. Mystery Shopping. There are a ton of companies out there that are looking for mystery shoppers, and no, you do not have to pay anything to register - those are scams. Anyway, I've now done 3 and I'm not sure how I feel about them. They don't pay a lot of money, on the 3 I've made $34.00. It's kind of hum-bug because they are very specific when you can go. It would be great if they said go to Ruby Tuesday's anytime but they don't. They will tell you to go on Friday or Saturday after 5 p.m., or some such nonsense. They are also very specific what you are to do. They tell you what exactly you are looking for and it you are to try and solicit it or not. Then there is the paperwork. You have about 12 hours to fill it out and the questions are …

This is probably one of the things I stink at most. I can gather information like you would not believe. I can have reams and reams of information. When it comes to actually organizing and utilizing that information, yeah, not so much......

But fear not, there is something out there that can help save people like me, Information Organizer! You should be hearing the music from Mighty Dog right about now. This is an unbelievable cool way to help you deal with all your information. It allows you to make a mindmap of various pieces of information and connect them all. Here a chief is using it for recipe information organizer software. It allows you to see all the various pieces of the situation or project or whatever. It also allows you to view the little details without losing sight of the big picture.

Here is a 3d mindmapping software review of Topicscape 3D organization software. This is really exciting. Especially for someone like me who can get so caught up in the minutiae…

is something that I have always thought is important. I went to college later in life but I was bound and determined to get my degree.

Lately I've been throwing around going back and getting a masters. When I began college I was determined to go all the way and get my PhD. That quickly got squashed by reality. But lately I've been throwing around going and getting anmba, possibly online. Capella University has world class, published professors, and offers a number of online degrees.

My BS degree is in marine biology but I don't think I want to pursue that field. I like it and everything, I just have some issues with some of the people involved in it here. I might consider information technology, that would be an interesting field. Or possibly just general business. I'm not sure why exactly. I don't want to go into business but maybe it will help with me figuring out a way to stay home and work. Hmmm..... I don't know.

I was in the store today and they were giving out free samples of vodka and rum!! Now that's the demo job I want!!! I wonder how they get away with that?? No, I didn't taste it, I don't like vodka and I can't drink rum straight.

I was in a store the other day and they were giving out free samples of something I remember thinking that is so not going to sell. The lady was having trouble giving the samples away. I wish I could remember exactly what it was now. Whatever it was they did not do enough market research on this. It was doomed to fail.

Anyway, that's all. Just things. I have lots of these things floating around in my head. Sometimes they just need to get out :)